Department of Management, Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Head of Department
Our students are at the core of everything we do! This strongly held guiding principle is embodied in our unwavering commitment to providing constant support to enable students to pursue their personal aspirations and achieve their academic and professional career goals. Our department is here to prepare the next generation of leaders who will assume positions of responsibility and make viable decisions to help their organizations attain higher levels of sustainable success. We aim to prepare them to become responsible leaders who are not merely driven by performance targets, but who also know how to balance conflicting priorities, deal with multiple stakeholders’ demands, and reflect on the ethical and social implications of their actions.
The management major is designed to expose students to critical dilemmas facing today’s business professionals, helping them to develop and apply the requisite innovative critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills. Our curriculum is constantly updated, while our approaches to teaching and learning evolve to keep up with the shifting realities of the contemporary workplace. By seizing the opportunity to graduate in the management field, students benefit from excellent training and preparation to skillfully approach the emerging challenges and deploy their knowledge to successfully overcome them. |-BREAK-|
Our world-class faculty members create a vibrant atmosphere in the classroom, where the acquisition of new knowledge occurs via collaborative learning processes and frequent engagements with the local and international business community. Through theory-driven lectures, hands-on seminars, guest speakers and other extracurricular activities, students develop and apply their skills to communicate, negotiate, coordinate, strategize and innovate. This is also witnessed in the entirely student-led organization, The Management Initiative, that aims to promote and spread awareness of the multiple career paths that the management major offers its graduates.. Our graduates enjoy thriving careers working in leadership positions in public, private and non-profit organizations not only in the UAE but also beyond its boundaries.
Our faculty members also excel at scholarly activities, by both conducting independent research and being part of international and multidisciplinary research teams. The scholarly work of our faculty is published in many top-tier academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Annals, Journal of Management, Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Perspectives, Journal of World Business, Family Business Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Business & Society, British Journal of Management, and European Management Journal. The department hosts two endowed research chairs, namely The Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business and The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies. Many of our faculty are associate editors or serve on editorial boards of prestigious academic journals, present the results of their research projects at international conferences in the field, and engage in customized executive education programs and consulting activities with local and international companies.
The Department of Management, Strategy and Entrepreneurship is committed to offering an outstanding educational journey and an unforgettable learning experience that will survive the test of time! I warmly invite you to browse through the various pages of our website to learn more about our offerings and interact with our members more closely. I am also eager to meet you and discuss more in detail how the department and its members can support you in the pursuit and achievement of your personal and professional goals!
Virginia Bodolica, PhD
Head of Department
Programs
Faculty
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Why Choose Management, Strategy and Entrepreneurship?
Research
- Chair in Leadership Studies
The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies at the American University of Sharjah was established in 2019 to honor the legacy of a prominent entrepreneur, business person, philanthropist, and father. In early 1950s, Mr. Said T. Khoury co-founded Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) and led its transformation from a small subcontracting firm into an international construction engineering giant. Headquartered in Athens, Greece, CCC is nowadays one of the top 25 companies in the world in its industry of operation, having a workforce of about 130,000 employees and executing major projects in over 40 countries.
The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies is dedicated to the development and dissemination of impactful knowledge base about leadership that manifests itself across different levels of analysis, transcending disciplinary silos, functional areas, and industry boundaries. The distinctiveness of the Chair consists in its balanced approach to leadership theory and practice, which is materialized through a fruitful combination of academic endeavors and practice-focused initiatives. The Chair strives to conduct a series of closely interrelated activities in three mutually reinforcing areas, namely youth engagement, scholarly production, and non/academic outreach.
The vision and the mission statements of The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies draws upon the Chairholder's definition of leadership and its distinctive characteristics and were developed by the taking into account the values and philosophy of the two major stakeholders: the donor of the Chair; and American University of Sharjah.
Vision | The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies at American University of Sharjah seeks to develop a well-established knowledge platform in the region for the generation, dissemination, and promotion of impactful leadership studies, practices and insights.
Mission | The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies at American University of Sharjah provides an open venue for students, alumni, scholars and practitioners to create and share relevant knowledge about leadership in its broadest sense and its various manifestations. Through a mix of synergistic and mutually reinforcing actions and initiatives that strike a balance between research and practice, the Chair is committed to producing outcomes that have impact and span across levels, industries, sectors and spheres of activity.
- Founding Values
Key values of the donor of the Chair:
Family culture and beliefs:
The late Said Khoury left “a legacy of family values” that is deeply engrained in the organizational culture of CCC that he co-founded and where a family-like atmosphere continues to flourish and prosper.
Youth growth and development:
Mr. Samer Khoury is a board member of Education for Employment (EFE), a non-governmental institution which focusses on creating valuable employment opportunities for youth in the MENA region by connecting university graduates with prospective employers.
Transparency and accountability:
CCC is one of the founding partners of the Pearl Initiative, a non-profit organization that promotes best practices in the field of ethics, corporate governance and social responsibility.
Key values of the university:
- Education and innovation for positive societal impact
- Trust and shared responsibility
- Leadership, respect, distinction, integrity and inclusiveness
Chairholder’s definition of leadership:
Leadership is defined in its broadest sense, acknowledging that it can embrace different connotations and manifest itself through a variety of cues and means. This definition suggests that leadership is not merely specific to an individual, but can also be a property of a team, an organization, and even an entire government, nation or state. This implies a cross-silo and cross-disciplinary conceptualization of leadership that generates impact across individual, group, and organizational levels and spans across industries, sectors, and national boundaries.
Mr. Samer S. Khoury, donor of the Chair, and all the members of the Khoury family are active promoters of integrity, diversity, inclusiveness, and youth engagement and empowerment. These are also the values that are profoundly rooted in the foundational pillars of AUS. At the same time, leadership is about real actions and interventions that are influenced by valuable research insights and have practical relevance.
- Guiding Principles
The six major leadership characteristics that are captured by the word IMPACT serve as guiding principles for the activities conducted by The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies at AUS. These principles represent the very essence of the Chair, as they were employed for thinking through and articulating potential initiatives that the Chair could deploy over the course of the next few years.
Statement of Chair Activities
The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies at AUS pursues a number of closely related and synergistic activities, such as undergraduate teaching; enhancement of the student experience; engagement with alumni; research and scholarly production; outreach efforts through workshops, seminars and executive education programs; involvement with academic and professional communities; guest speaking events; and other endeavors for strengthening the relationship between academia and the business world.
The Chair activities strive to be:
Inspirational: developing youth, enhancing and showcasing their capabilities, engaging students and alumni, closing the skills gaps
Meaningful: connecting with the world of business, linking theory to practice, examining real business problems, enhancing practical relevance
Plural(istic): conducting research relying on the broadly defined leadership concept that favors diversity and crosses conventional boundaries
Agile: engaging in multiple research projects, pursuing activities related to the theme of innovation (as a leadership feature for individuals, firms, industries and nations)
Collaborative: fostering cross-silo collaborations, pursuing cross-disciplinary research projects in collaboration with local and international scholars
Transparent: conducting research on ethics and corporate governance, such as accountable business practices, responsible leadership, board and C-suite dynamics
- Areas of Activity
To achieve its vision and keep the promise made in its mission statement, The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies at AUS will initiate and conduct a series of closely interrelated activities in three mutually reinforcing areas.
- Youth Engagement
The Chair aims to contribute to the development of youth in order to enhance their competitiveness in the regional and international labor market. A number of different actions are pursued to achieve this purpose.
Youth Engagement: Tentative Activities
Mentoring current students to enhance and develop their capabilities
Showcasing students’ work and skills by involving them in collaborative projects
Training students and alumni in various research techniques
Involving students and alumni in case study research and writing
Co-authoring case studies and research papers with students and alumni
Engaging with alumni by inviting them as guest speakers in relevant classes
Organizing field trips to expose students to real business challenges
Inviting students and alumni to participate in (in)formal networking events
- Scholarly Production
Three broad lines of research in relation to leadership studies would be pursued by the Chair over the years. These research lines could be tentatively positioned at the macro, meso and micro levels of analysis and a summarized below.
Scholarly Production: Tentative Activities
- Finalizing current research projects and initiating new ones, mainly of cross-disciplinary nature
- Pursuing collaborative research projects with peers from the region and beyond
- Conducting three lines of research (at macro, meso, and micro levels) in relation to leadership studies
- Mentoring junior scholars (in paper development practices) and writing joint research papers
- Inviting renowned faculty for research presentations and PhD students for short research visits at AUS
- Involving AUS students and alumni in case study research and writing, and co-authoring papers with them
- Writing and publishing an inaugural theory-to-practice book in co-authorship with AUS students and alumni
- Academic and Non-Academic Outreach
The Chair seeks to conduct a number of both academic and non-academic outreach activities to further contribute to the strengthening of the relationship between the university and the business world. Organizing field trips and site visits in collaboration with CCC could be very beneficial for enhancing the overall learning experience of AUS students. The Chair commits to being very responsive to specific requests received from the CCC management and head office in Greece, to provide research-driven best practice advice and guidance.
Non/Academic Outreach: Tentative Activities
Academic Outreach
- Attending scientific conferences and presenting papers
- Participating in professional associations
- Delivering keynote/featured conference speeches
- Serving on journal editorial boards
- Reviewing journal and conference papers
- Co-organizing symposia, workshops and events
Non-Academic outreach
- Offering executive education programs and seminars
- Delivering keynote speeches at practitioner workshops
- Strengthening the relationship with the donor’s company, CCC
- Offering to contribute to the CCC Bulletin
- Building awareness and presence through (social) media
- Contact Us
Chair: The Said T. Khoury Chair of Leadership Studies
Sponsor: Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC)
Chairholder: Virginia Bodolica, PhDProfessor Virginia Bodolica
Chairholder
Tel +971 6 515 2308
[email protected]
- Chair in Family Business
The Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business was established to honor Sheikh Saoud Khalid Al Qassimi's legacy. He was a Sharjah businessman who founded a family business back in the 1970s that is now in its third generation. The Chair, which is the first of its kind in the country, aims to become a recognized family business knowledge hub in the regional, national and international context.
Vision | To become a recognized family business knowledge hub in the regional, national and international context.
Mission | To foster sustainable support to family firms by creating value for business families and regional communities through conducting research and developing teaching activities which may strive to connect past, present and future family generations in order to achieve their individual, family, business and community objectives.
Objectives | Create groundbreaking knowledge of family businesses which will be useful for promoting sustainable firms and cohesive and happy families for the regional well-being and competitiveness.
- Activities
The activities of the Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business are integrated into three main pillars: research, teaching and knowledge transfer.
- Research
- UAE, GCC and MENA family firms in an international context.
- Developing outstanding lines of research in order to contextualize the phenomenon of family business in the UAE, GCC and MENA region.
- Publishing academic articles in top journals in order to disseminate the knowledge created by the Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business.
- Participating in national and international research conferences in order to extend the network and knowledge horizons of the Chair.
- Strengthening research links with local, regional, and international researchers and scholars as well as research groups.
- Improving students' analytical skills by involving them in research activities.
- Teaching
- Comprehensive understanding of family business: specificities and importance.
- Designing family business courses for undergraduate and graduate levels.
- Organizing family business workshops and seminars for business families.
- Coordinating external educational activities within the community by linking the Family Business Chair with external stakeholders.
- Developing specific programs for family business executive education.
- Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge-Based Family Business
- Developing activities and actions for practitioners, who are actively involved in family businesses, in order to disseminate practical knowledge and good practices for family business sustainability and survivability.
- Developing activities and actions for business families in order to integrate all family members in their practice-based activities with the aim to achieve the well-being of the family and the well-being of the firm.
- Collaborating with policy-makers in order to encourage public institutions to support family business and entrepreneurial family business activities.
- Developing a family business incubator lab as an integrated space for the new generation of family business members in order to develop their entrepreneurial competencies.
- Expected Impact
The activities developed by the Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business are expected to have impact on three different levels: individual level, family and firm level, and regional-community level.
At the individual level, the Chair will:
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help family members to better understand their role as owners and/or managers while being, at the same time, mothers, fathers, siblings, etc.
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improve the abilities and skills of a new generation of family business members to develop and expand their personal and professional career inside and outside the firm
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develop leadership abilities of new generations of family business members to face the challenge of firm survivability and family cohesiveness
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help the incumbent generation to develop a successful succession process
At the community level, the Chair will:
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increase understanding of family business and business family in the United Arab Emirates, the MENA region, and its role in the international context
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increase integration of local family businesses into the international context
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prepare the country, through its family firms, to assume the challenge of upcoming social and economic changes
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Additionally, as a part of American University of Sharjah, the Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business will contribute to the university's research and education excellence.
At the family and firm level, the Chair will:
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create healthy and competitive firms and happy and cohesive families
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promote sustainable family business models by strengthening the link between the family and the firm
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improve the transparency in the communication between family, business and society
For AUS, the Chair will:
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increase the intellectual leadership and mentoring in the AUS School of Business Administration, and in the region
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establish a prominent regional center for family business research
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contribute to the research aims of AUS by focusing on family business research
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increase importance and visibility of AUS in the regional and international research market
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- Line of Research
The main challenge for the UAE is to guide the future economic and social development within a particular context characterized by the post-oil economy. In this particular context, family businesses and business families are the main economic and social factors responsible for maintaining the economic dynamism of the region and for keeping and preserving the cultural traditions.
The Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business will contribute to understanding of the past, present and future role of family firms by focusing its research in four areas:
- Women in Family Firms-Arab Countries
- Family Entrepreneurship-New Generation Perspective
- Migration and Family Firms in Arab Countries
- Family Business and Regional Development in the UAE
These areas of research converge on the primary research interest: Family Business Governance and Management in Arab Countries.
- Contact Us
For more information, please contact us:
Chair: Sheikh Saoud bin Khalid bin Khalid Al-Qassimi Chair in Family Business
Sponsor: Al Saud Company Ltd.Chairholder: Rodrigo Basco, PhD
Tel +971 6 515 2356
Fax +971 6 515 4065
[email protected]
Hear from our students and alumni
Association for Innovation, Management, and Strategy (AIMS)
The Association for Innovation, Management, and Strategy (AIMS) is the leading student representative of the Department of Management, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship at AUS. Our mission is to advance students’ understanding of the management field by introducing them to real-world challenges through organizing engaging events that educate and fascinate them. When you join AIMS, you become an event pro, a volunteering champ, and a business forum enthusiast, gaining hands-on experience in event planning and execution. Our dedicated team aims to deliver meaningful events that help you fully realize the value of your management degree. We are always ready to support students and faculty from our department with projects aligned with AIMS's objectives. Join AIMS today and embark on a thrilling journey of learning and growth.
Alumni
All our graduates are well-positioned to contribute in the workforce immediately upon graduation. They are equipped with a comprehensive understanding of business, finance, economics, and marketing, along with valuable practical skills and work experience. This makes them top choice for to employers who are seeking versatile professionals. With their expertise, AUS management graduates have the opportunity to excel in a wide range of sectors, whether its public or private sectors. Many also choose to pursue advanced degrees in business administration and related disciplines.
SEE WHERE AUS GRADUATES HAVE LANDED:
ENOC
Emaar Properties
KPMG
Mastercard
American University of Sharjah
Etihad Airways
Shamsi General Trading L.L.C
The Boston Consulting Group
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
Dell
Deloitte
Dubai Police
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Contact
For more information about our department or programs, please contact us:
Department Head
Dr. Virginia Bodolica
Tel +971 6 515 2308
[email protected]
Administrative Assistant
Abegail Morata
Tel +971 6 515 2302
[email protected]
For admission information, please visit https://infodesk.aus.edu, sign up and post your query.
